Depths of Emerald Agony
by prosopopeya
Summary: Mimi dies and leaves Roger tragically angsting over her death. He can't turn to his best friend for some steamy comfort thanks to the threat of an AIDS coma, so who CAN he turn to? MRJareth from Labyrinth, but no Laby knowledge is required. Oneshot.


A/N: So, this was inspired by angsty Roger fics and all the Mark/Roger. Not that there's anything _wrong_ with Mark/Roger, mind you, just that I was feeling particularly snarky and I decided to write myself a parody. Ah, contributions, lesse...the AIDS coma comes from Something About Him, a particularly good fic by Feeling Sinister that you should read. Rated M for almost-sex because when you throw Jareth into a R/M story, how can you not have some sex?

Disclaimer: I don't own the AIDS coma, Rent, or Jareth, duh. I also don't own the few people who make cameos at the end. I do, however, own your soul starting...NOW.

(lololol jk)

**Depths of Emerald Agony**

Roger stared blankly down at the solid wooden coffin that laid before him. His friends were around him, silently looking on with those pained looks of sympathy. Tears leaked out of his eyes, as they should out of the eyes of any angsting ex-lover of a dead junkie. Sniveling, he wiped at his face, turning away from the remains of Mimi and trudging slowly back up the hill. Memories of Angel's funeral flooded his head and he remembered his argument with Mimi. So much lost time… Heaving a tormented sob, he buried his face into his hands.

Mimi was gone. Collins had been getting paler and weaker… Anytime now he, too, would be going. Then all that would be left would be Mark, Maureen, and Joanne. What an interesting triangle story that would make…

Walking become so mechanical, the consoling words of his friends bouncing off his rugged motorcycle jacket. He'd heard it all before, so many times. It was all the same. He'd said it to Collins. They'd say it to each other when Collins died. Mark would hear most of it when he died…

Roger blinked the tears out of his eyes and looked around. Somehow his feet had carried him from the cemetery to his and Mark's loft. He sat on the couch, his arms folded over his knees.

"Roger? Roger, are you alright?" Mark's soft voice came to him from somewhere above his head, and he looked up, his long hair falling tragically in front of his eyes.

"Mark—" he choked, tears welling up in his eyes. A look of utter concern crept across Mark's eyes and he collapsed onto the couch next to Roger, his hand tentatively and gently falling onto Roger's arm, squeezing it tenderly.

"Oh, Roger," he said softly. Their bodies were close, completely touching, their heads hovering beside the other. Roger could hear Mark's own breaths over his sorrowful sobs, and as the tragedy of his situation befell his mind once more and a fresh wave of tears attacked his frame, Mark pulled Roger into his arms without a word.

He fell comfortably onto his friend's chest, crying out his ache into the shoulder of his longtime friend, his arms snaking around Mark in an effort to hold him tighter, a desperate search to hold onto _something_. Mark made gentle soothing noises, running his long, slender fingers through Roger's blonde and handsomely matted hair. Neither of them were sure when Roger's tears dried, but Roger found himself still in Mark's arms quite some time later, his face no longer sopping wet from the liquid evidence of his tragic existence.

Roger stirred slightly, Mark's arms giving him only enough leeway to sit up. Otherwise, his friend barely let go of Roger, keeping a firm grip on the former rock star. Roger's red eyes searched the clear blue ones of Mark, finding such deep emotion shining back at him. A swirl of comfort and peace entered Roger's tainted soul, and suddenly there was no space between the two friends anymore.

Neither could be sure which had moved first. They only knew that one moment Mark was pouring his heart out through his cerulean pools and Roger was pleading for solace with his tear-stained depths of emerald agony, and then their lips were crushed together, years of restrained desperation and hidden emotions pouring out in a few seconds' worth of feeling.

Their mouths united, their bodies pushed and pressed against the other, hands reaching and searching, pulling at clothing and sliding over skin. Their breath mingled as their lips finally parted, panting their need to go on. Roger leaned Mark back onto the couch, his hands reaching underneath his friend's shirt. Mark let out soft noises of urgent need, his hands eagerly pulling at Roger's belt.

It was when he felt his belt slide from his waist that Roger realized he had forgotten his plight for the past few minutes. His lips were crushed against Mark's neck when he remembered—what was he _doing?_

Roger yanked himself away from Mark, leaping off the couch and taking a few steps away, running his shaking hands through his perfectly tousled hair. Mark sat up quickly, his shirt falling back into place, a look of utter disappointment etched across his sweet face.

"What's wrong?" he asked, standing up and reaching out slowly for Roger. He flinched away from the hand and shook his head, tears once more pushing for release.

"We can't, Mark," he choked out, hands balling up into fist.

"Of course we can!" Mark replied, almost a little desperately. He walked around to face Roger, his hand searching for the sobbing figure's hand. Roger shook his head emphatically, fingers at first clinging tightly to Mark's hold before he cried out a muffled, "No!" and stumbled away.

"No, Mark, we can't. I can't… I can't give you…" He looked up over his shoulder, Mark's face twisted in true agony. "I could never watch you die," Roger whispered out into the still silence of the studio apartment. Roger's melodic yet gruff voice, thick with tears, was the only sound in the loft aside from the frantic beating of the two boys' hearts.

Mark's eyes were filling up with tears as well. He looked away from Roger, around the apartment, his head swirling this way and that as his mind raced with thoughts. He finally nodded, started to walk past Roger on the way to his room. He paused and their eyes met for one last second, both of their hearts reaching out for the other. Finally Mark broke the spell. Roger heard the shutting of a door and he collapsed to his knees, his tears once more taking over his body.

He lay crumpled on the floor for what might have been hours. In the end, he decided with a heaving sob, it didn't really matter how long he lay there. His life was over, was nothing. He had lost everything—April, Mimi, his career—and now he could not have the one thing that his whole body, soul, and being cried out for—Mark.

There was no point in him being there anymore… If only he could just…

Roger's tragically troubled mind began to race as his mother's voice came to him. Roger was eight again and being tucked into bed, his mother smoothing back his hair as she told him her favorite story.

_"But the little boy kept screaming and screaming and screaming, and the young mother couldn't take it anymore. She ran from the living room where the little boy had broken the vase and into the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face to try to calm herself down, but it didn't work. As she stood, she saw herself in the mirror and she couldn't stop herself. She just had to say it._

_'I wish the goblins would come and take him away. Right now.'"_

Now Roger stood in front of the mirror, his mind swirling with that story. He drew in a deep breath, the tears continually streaming down his face.

"I wish the goblins would come and take me away right now," he sobbed out, his breath fogging the mirror. Feeling wretched and doomed and alone, Roger curled up on the cool floor of the bathroom and shut his eyes, sore from weeping, and drifted to sleep.

Roger awoke when the sound of boot heels clicking on the floor of their loft broke the silence. He struggled to open his eyes, finding they were nearly glued shut with his tears. Finally he was able to pry them open, blinking and squinting as he looked up in the darkness. All he could see was a mass of glitter and a large blonde head.

"Are you the one who summoned me?" came a haughty voice from above him. Roger gulped. He had forgotten that his mother had never finished the story. He'd always asked her how it would end, and she always told him that when the story ever finished, he would be the first to know. Scrambling to his feet, he strained to see this figure standing in the doorway.

"Who are you?" Roger asked.

The figure's head tilted and he leaned in the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. "Shouldn't you know that? You summoned me."

Blinking, Roger shook his head. "I—I didn't know who I was calling," he said, curiosity spreading its wings through his burdened chest. He could almost hear the smirk in the figure's voice as it moved toward him, pushing off the wood, its boots clicking gently against the floor. It paused before him and seemed to consider him for a few moments before it stepped back.

"Stand up."

Roger complied automatically, his head spinning slightly from his motion. He gripped the sink for support as he tried to make the face come into focus.

"Well, well, well." He could very nearly hear the smirk in the voice, and it made his skin crawl with a sense of trepidation. "What an interesting development this has turned out to be." Suddenly the room, which had previously been as bleak and dark as Roger's future without being able to share his profoundly deep feelings, flooded with stark and harsh light.

There in front of Roger's eyes stood the most beautiful man he had ever seen in his entire life. The blonde hair stood out from his head like a halo of eternal golden beauty. His entire lean stature stood before Roger, draped in a glittery sort of jacket that was blue or something; Roger didn't really pay much attention to that. His tear-crusted eyes flittered down the man and alighted on the bulge protruding from the crotch of the man.

"You can look in my eyes now," the man said finally. Roger wasn't entirely sure just how long he had been standing there, staring at the beauty that stood before him, but he found that his leg had gone to sleep and that he had forgotten to breathe. Taking a few deep breaths, the blue color began to drain from Roger's lips as the man reclined against the wall, picking at the fingers of his gloves. "So, why is your life so tragic that you wished yourself away to me?"

The question washed out Roger's mind of this strange man and fresh tears pricked at his eyes, begging to come free, as his mind flooded with the memories of what had happened in the previous day. "Oh God." He fell to his knees, burying his face in his hands as he heaved out horrendously heart-wrenching sobs of pain.

"I'm flattered, but you can call me Jareth."

Jareth's words were drowned out by the sorrowful howl that escaped Roger's lips before he began to explain what had happened to reduce him to this pitiful creature of emotional turmoil. "My girlfriend! She _died_ and now I'm all alone! I'm all alone in this big loft with the man I've been secretly in love with for a long time yet somehow I confused that with love for a stripper, and I can't even share with him the most sacred part of me because—because—" Roger broke off, his voice heavy with the weight of his grief. "Because I have AIDS, and I can't bring myself to give it to him too!"

A soft chuckle came out of the man who was hovering above Roger, and he slowly lifted his head, incredulous that this man dare mock the torture that Roger was suffering.

"What's so funny?" he snapped, his green eyes switching from beautifully torn to crispily angry. "Don't you see the real tragedy in this situation? I want to have sex with my best friend but I can't!"

Jareth leaned down, leaning his elbows onto his knees. Roger found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the bulge that was now screaming for his attention.

"Roger, you are flattering, but do _try_ to look into my eyes when I'm speaking to you," Jareth said tiredly, as if he had grown weary from people oogling the protrusion in his pants on a daily basis.

"How did you know my name?" Turning his face back up to Jareth, Roger blinked innocently at him, his voice suddenly wistful and curious.

"I know everything, Roger," Jareth smirked, his hand coming up to trace along the edge of Roger's jaw. "I know that you suffer from this disease called AIDS, and I know that many people die slow, agonizing deaths after going into an AIDS coma." Somehow the space between Jareth and Roger had grown smaller as Jareth was speaking, and Roger could almost feel the presence of the bulge in the air of the room, pressing into him from all sides. It seemed to him almost like he should be able to reach out and lick the air and it would be like he was licking that swelling of perfection itself. "And I know that you want this," Jareth whispered.

Suddenly there was no space between them any longer, and Roger's breath was mingling with the breath of this strange man. He tasted of exotic fruits and strangely of chicken, but all Roger was concerned about was the fact that this gorgeous man was pressing his tender lips to his, and his hand was only a few inches away…

Yanking himself away from Jareth, Roger violently remembered his tragic fate, that he could never achieve true happiness in his life, that he had missed out on all his chances to do what he had dreamed. There was a razor on the sink, and he stared down at it now, the tears forming in his eyes again.

"Foolish boy," Jareth purred, his arms sliding around Roger's waist. Roger flinched but didn't more. Soft lips left a trail along the neck of the tortured soul. "Do you think something like AIDS could keep me from this?" For a few moments, Roger wasn't sure if what was throbbing in his pants hadn't somehow been transferred to his neck in some horrific operation gone wrong that would only serve to complicate his life even more, for Jareth's mouth on his neck was sending him nearly through the roof.

It was when Roger's pants were pushed to his ankles and Jareth's upper clothing had been removed that Mark stumbled into the bathroom.

"What the hell?" he asked weakly, staring miserably at the regal blonde with the banana in his pants with his lips crushed against the chest of his—_his_—tragic former-rocker with the recently-dead ex-junkie girlfriend/stripper.

"Oh, Mark it's—well, I guess it is what you think, but—" Jareth pressed a quick kiss to silence Roger's words and he turned his multicolor eyes onto Mark, a slow smile curving the corners of his mouth.

"Good morning," he purred, keeping one arm around Roger as he stretched the other one out toward Mark. "Care to join us for breakfast?" he grinned wickedly.

"But, but your AIDS!" Mark stammered out, glancing from the two blondes.

"He can't get AIDS!" Roger said, nearly cheerful, and Mark stared in shock at Roger for a few moments. They each stood for a few moments in silence in the bathroom, staring at each other as the information began to sink in.

Not much thinking occurred after that, though they did sink into various things throughout the rest of the morning, including but not limited to body orifices.

Roger snuggled up next to one side of Jareth, hours later as they reclined on the bed, and Mark cuddled against the other. As the three sated men began to drift off to sleep, Mark found Roger's hand atop Jareth's chest.

Collins poked his head around the edge of the door, Maureen and Joanne appearing below him, much like a Scooby Doo cartoon, only this time they were discovering that Fred and Daphne actually did go and have sex while the others were investigating the mystery, only they also brought along Velma and it turned out that Velma and Daphne were really guys.

They blinked at each other for a few moments before they began to argue about which one they should wish away.


End file.
